tonight in our fighting for his fifteen minutes at the republican national convention ron paul and his supporters haven't given up hope yet why he could have a prime speaking role at the. convention later this summer. we all know the saying that kids will be kids but that certainly doesn't mean they'll be treated like it especially in the confines of the u.s. public school system we'll tell you about the cradle to prison pipeline that's funneling america's youth into the hard knock life. and the middle east isn't the only region the u.s. is tightening its grip on these days in america's backyard a four decade drug war has sparked military interests coming up we'll show you how the u.s. may be helping to create enemies before writing them off. it's

tuesday july tenth here in washington d.c. i'm liz wall and you're watching our. well despite what you hear he's still in the running republican presidential candidate ron paul and his supporters are giving up on his delegate strategy and it looks like that effort is paying off in the state of nebraska one week from today nebraska will be holding its convention and if paul nabs the state it will be the fifth state who's delegation paul controls and according to republican national committee rules securing five states means you can formally be nominated for president and that guarantees him time to speak on the floor so it's not over yet but can he pull it off and what would a win in nebraska mean for paul and his very loyal following austin petersen

director for freedom works joined me earlier to weigh and take a listen. so well not necessarily you see paul has conceded that he won't likely be the republican nominee but that doesn't mean that there aren't small battles the one along the way you see the republican national convention in tampa will be a battle not necessarily for the nomination but it will be a battle to shape the platform the platform is the national dialogue it's what do republicans care about what do they agree on what are the issues that they all say that we're all going to move forward on so i think that the ron paul delegates who are going to be going to the republican national convention are necessarily going to be focused on winning the nomination outright although it's not impossible if you were to win a plurality of delegates he's name could still be put put forward as a candidate and if something were to happen to mitt romney between now and then god forbid then there is a chance that he could take a step up and take that role but most likely what's happening right now is that ron paul's delegates across the nation that he's earned about i think around two hundred fifty of them are working to influence the platform of the republican

national convention which is a very very important step in bringing forward our ideas at discuss more of the significance that that farm given simply being allowed the platform to speak its convention right well imagine what happened to ron paul and his supporters in two thousand and eight ron paul himself was not even invited to the republican convention in two thousand and eight there was a shadow convention that occurred in the twin cities across the way it was in minneapolis st paul and across the way ron paul's supporters and about ten thousand of them were sort of excommunicated from the r n c they weren't invited they weren't credentialed and they weren't allowed to come out on the floor ron paul and self was only allowed live believe one staff member to go for a temporary small amount of time if ron paul is actually invited to the republican national convention this time in two thousand and twelve if he's actually given a speaking slot then well first of all it's not going to make the republicans happy but it's going to show that his people are here they're there to stay and that they are a major important power block within the g.o.p.

that they have to respect and whose issues that they have to pander to so. his presence will be there and supporters will be there you will be given a chance to speak i chance to spread the idea and a chance to even kind of contrast stab with mitt romney absolutely absolutely because if he was given a fifteen minute slot to speak you can be sure that it's not going he's not going to change his mind on the issues so you would have this coronation ceremony with it was all mitt romney and then all of a sudden you would have this sort of you know ron paul moment where for fifteen minutes you would hear about the ideas of liberty you'd hear about his concepts about monetary policy you hear about his concepts about civil liberties these are not the things that the g.o.p. cares about necessarily but there are things about a small vocal minority the population really don't care about and they are represented by ron paul and i hope that these people are in franchise delegates are franchised because for that fifteen minutes that he'll have which is his you know his last moments on the stage before he retires those issues would be addressed and

his people would be heard and i think that it would go a long way in stemming a lot of the rage that has sort of been built up over this process from the ron paul delegates and people who've been to disenfranchised by the process people in in massachusetts for example who were forced to sign these illegal affidavits that they would be required to support mitt romney you know even though it's impossible to sign an affidavit to do or have a notary sign to do something in the future i think it would go a long way to have ron paul just speak for fifteen minutes to quell some of the anger that is that has gone on throughout this process and you know ron paul has said before that it's not necessarily just about winning the president say that a lot of it is set in spreading this message that he has sell and away wouldn't this be a victory for hand gamble that they have hapless form sure absolutely but you've also got to look at not just the presidency when he talks about the idea of spreading ideas you know he's had candidates that he's endorsed winning their house and senate primary races you know we have one very powerful senator right now is

names mike leigh's not even related to rand ron paul like his. son rand paul is senator mike lee was not going to win his election until he was endorsed by ron paul and all of a sudden the grassroots came out and help senator mike lee win his race we now have a very powerful conservative libertarian leaning senator in the senate we also have ron paul son senator rand paul we also have a freshman congressman from michigan his name is justin amash he's the future ron paul people say there's thomas massie in kentucky who's running in his primary right now who just won his his primary and he's looking to be the next libertarian leaning republican in the house so you can't win the big prize necessarily all the time and i think ron knew that that wasn't necessarily going to happen although we did our best you know paul and his supporters but we did win all of these little battles along the way we took over the state parties and we want all these delegations and we won a senate seat here we want to house seat there and you know i thirty one years old

if i live to be sixty in double large you know our take that we do over the next four to five years and we keep doubling and keep doubling it then we'll have a very strong power block when both the house and the senate which to through which we can have libertarian ideas heard throughout our lifetime so ron paul's movement is going to live beyond him it doesn't matter what happens at the even at the republican national convention everybody knows the platform doesn't even necessarily mean anything but what does mean something is that we have these senators that have won we have these freshman congressmen in the air that have won we have more people running for office and we have this movement that started out as a tiny little nothing that was completely excommunicated and now we have them taking over little seats of power here and they're all over the united states so i actually i'm very heartened you know it's sad it's sad to lose the big prize but there's little prizes that have been won that we can sort of look to as our victory well i kind of now in nebraska you know it's part of hoping that they can win our state and because that van you know we're seeing reports that. increased

security kind of prepare for this ron paul. insurgency as they call it what do you think about that just gearing up for the ron paul fanatics said to you that they as they see ads and they're like hey we need to buckle down and get more security for for the ron paul people right well i hope the security is there to take care of everybody because it's been the ron paul i had to have been assaulted all across the united states whenever there's been reports of violence it's always been the romney supporters who have thrown the beat down on ron paul supporters so i hope there is security there because the last thing that i want to see is more violence done to our delegates as there has been in the past a lot of people have been reporting that ron paul is having his last stand in the basket if he doesn't get the delegation the formality of delegates nebraska that that would be his last stand but i don't really understand that because as i've understood it from the delegate numbers there was louisiana maine minnesota mississippi missouri and also colorado which ron paul had a plurality of delegates and so as i understand it right now ron paul does have

a plurality of delegates and several news outlets have reported legitimately that ron paul has enough delegates to have his name put into contention for the republican nomination in tampa which means that he would be given a fifteen minute speaking slot at the convention so i don't know that the reports that nebraska has his last stand are really that accurate because they are forgetting the state of colorado that he won the paralysing of delegates and as well no one seems to mention that but then how that's interesting it seems to be that and they're banking on the state of nebraska right no i don't believe so as i understand it right now there is already a plurality of delegates in the five states that paul has enough to give him the nomination but there were there were a lot of reports today that show that is his last his last stand which i don't believe is true and i don't want to bring up i want to play the sound clip of ron paul i dressing some of the chaos that has transpired between you know mitt romney and the establishment and the ron paul supporters and the path here's what he had to say about it. you know i want people to act dignified and not try to cause

a ruckus and break down you know and disrupt things at the same time i tell them you don't have to get pushed around if they're not following the rules you have a right to stand up to the rules and i think for the most part these winner in these winning. caucuses that we've been involved in we have pulled the rules and the other side has at times not called so what do you think about that piece of advice there he's like you know what if they're not following the rules you should fight back and you darn right because ron paul is a libertarian he's not a pacifist you know there is a time when you do have to fight and sometimes when you are being assaulted or if you are being cheated you have to stand up for your rights and you have to make a little bit of a ruckus i don't want that to happen i don't want to be violent and i don't want thing to happen but i mean you know there comes a time if somebody starts going right you know draws their fist back when you've got to get ready so i mean i don't think paul is advocating violence there are saying that you know they know that that's what he wants to happen but you know for too long these people have been disenfranchised for too long this message has been

pushed to the side and all of these people who've worked very hard for the last four years to push this campaign to the forefront are not going to just go home and not have their voices heard so when tampa comes up in august comes up it would be probably in mitt romney and they sell the show its best interests for them to give him his fifteen minutes to speak it's the last you know it's his last hurrah he's going to retire after this year and i think there won't be any problems now that often peterson director of freedom works. well today marks the twentieth anniversary of that ax panama dictator manuel noriega was sentenced for drug trafficking in miami on the payroll of the cia and graduate of the school of america as noriega has become notorious for representing one of the most serious foreign policy failures for the united states and as the u.s. is war on drugs drags into its fourth decade it looks like little has actually been achieved in the crackdown violence rages on in latin america the man at the demand for drugs still remains and while the brutal drug cartels stay in power u.s.

prisons are filling up with nonviolent drug offenders so what will it take for the u.s. to change its failed foreign policy in latin america and rethink the war on drugs to discuss this. field organizer for the school of the americas watch joining me earlier take a listen. men will know diego was trained at the u.s. army school of the americas which is a military training institution for latin american officials and soldiers it was actually set up in one hundred forty six in panama and later was moved in one thousand nine hundred eighty two to four benning ga manuel noriega was trained at the school americas in one nine hundred fifty s. and sixty's and he was even considered one of the student with honors he. called our man in panama manuel noriega was on the cia payroll that he said from one thousand nine hundred sixty six until his ouster by the us invasion in one thousand nine hundred nine and little has changed since then the us army school the americas

has consistently graduated the worst human rights violators and eleven at least eleven dictators in latin america and what we as the school americas watch are saying is what is the purpose behind the training of these human rights violators who keep popping up from argentina. general be there was just sentenced for for kidnapping babies you know in colombia every drug trafficker lot of the major generals were just recently cited as being in the payroll of the north to divide a drug cartel. in mexico we're seeing the same thing as well the u.s. continues to prop up these human rights violators and the continues and as you just had mentioned this school graduates a lot of these people that end up being dictators and human rights violators of what is it about the school of america does that pumps out these these graduates that end up committing these crimes later on well in one thousand nine hundred

eighty six the pentagon was forced to reveal that the school the americas was actually teaching torture and after the grassroots pressure continued to show that graduates were still being trained and in two thousand and one they changed the name of the school to the western have. institute for security cooperation however we understand that many of these graduates continue to go back they are the people who are doing the defending of of corporations work in latin america at the at the work behest of the united states there's a colonel in east who is a graduate from honduras who after the coup in that country in two thousand and nine which ousted the democratically elected government of manuel zelaya told the miami herald that because of their training in the united states it would be impossible for them to work with less leftist governments so this is a clear indication of the training that they're receiving the culture of militarization that is being in in giving imparted to these these didn't and here

knowledge that culture is still exists today that's right yes it still exists right now the colombian government is investigating some of the top generals including the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff who is equal to martin dempsey general martin dempsey in this country for receiving payments of up to one hundred thousand dollars a month from the. captured headed north baiji drug cartel in mexico right now and see that white is the police chief leon these are the pet is is a graduate school the americas and has been seriously implicated in human rights abuses and there are indications in two thousand and three the brownsville herald in texas reported that the mexican city secretary defense revealed that the original members at least one third of the original members of the set those drug cartel would receive u.s. training and were mexican special forces who later turned over to the drug cartels so it's quite possible that this school is training the dictators of tomorrow is

exactly right and the pentagon refuses to release the names of the graduates since two thousand and four so we continue to press the government to release those names of instructors and graduates and to continue to take our protests to school it seems shocking to me that there wouldn't be some in the wake of. nine eleven other . dictators that did attend this school that there aren't more safeguards to prevent this from happening whatever that may be unfortunately that's right the school the americas once they change their name to the western hemisphere institute for security cooperation established a rubberstamp board oversight board which does little to actually track the graduates and most of the information that we have received is from our social movements allies in latin america and many of those social movements who have tracked the graduates in their countries have now asked their presidents to pull out of the school americas ecuador recently just pulled out of the school americas just two weeks ago becoming the fifth country in latin america due to do so so now

what does that mean exactly does that mean people from appledore can no longer attend that's right and as of june twenty ninth of this year president correa said no more police or military will be attending the school in america is now looking this is kind of an opportunity to talk about the bigger picture of what exactly is going on in latin america you know this war on drugs that we've been fighting it for for decades now but are there any real science that it's working well the point where you see us intervention in latin america is that it's been the same objective with different facades in the one nine hundred fifty s. and sixty's up to the you know up to the ninety's it was the war on communism then it became the war on terrorism and the war on narco terrorism we're seeing that the same people are being affected the same people are dying and the same people are getting wealthy so while we're talking about drug cartels in latin america the same people are running money through the u.s. banks the same people are getting wealthy off of this drug war and not much is

changing as you talked about also in this country more and more people are being sent for nonviolent drug offenses so it's a issue that the united states refuses to address but more and more latin american leaders are actually trying to take a step back and say listen this drug war is not working and that was nico field organizer for the school the americas watch. well the war in afghanistan reportedly dwindling down but you wouldn't think so if you saw how much money the pentagon has spent in the last week nine point two billion dollars according to the department of fence website that's a four billion dollars more than was spent the week before the shopping list include six billion dollars worth of commercial shipping contracts what does that mean and means we're spending billions on bringing stuff back from afghanistan next up on that list a half a million dollar contract with boeing to stop building their ubiquitous c. seventeen jets not a bad severance package and to top off the spending spree new contracts with

textron to build the next generation of ship to land hover crafts that could amount to five hundred seventy million dollars but while the war in afghanistan quiets down the global demand for weapons is as loud as ever and the u.s. is stepping up right to feed that demand the u.s. department of defense has signed a new contract with boeing for one very popular item and anti ship missile called the harpoon which the u.s. has sold to dozens of countries providing south pacific powers with the exception of china with new missiles and at the same time making sure the united arab emirates and saudi arabia countries which rely heavily on the strait of hormuz are well stocked with these american made antiship missiles. well some schools in the u.s. looking more like juvenile detention centers there's a growing trend of police officers patrolling school halls and with that more kids

getting arrested the biggest offense disrupting class this is mostly going on in texas reports came out recently that a twelve year old girl was arrested for spraying perfume on herself at a middle school in austin so swearing smoking cigarettes violating dress code all these things can land kids take it to court according to the guardian in two thousand and ten police gave about three hundred thousand class c. misdemeanor tickets to children as young as six years old it's being called the war on kids in a documentary by that title takes a close look at a system a school system growing more authoritarian and paranoid here's a sneak peek it's like we take our children and we walk them up in a prison for thirteen years a day like if you're in summer you're like oh man you're like so free and you're happy and everything's fine and then you go to school and nothing is good anymore.

well kevin soling the director of the film the warren kids joined us earlier earlier to tell us more about it. but what inspired me to make the film were basically i was seeing more and more and then zero tolerance being used to expel and suspend children for the most. ludicrous infractions thing like kids would have the chicken strips and another student and when they'd be suspended for. possessing a weapon or making a kid ginger gardeners playing cops and robbers using their bare fingers as gun and saying bang in the principal suspending those children into darkness fine six years old and this just seems to be this this growing trend throughout the nation and the stream was serving me and. engine should be drawn to this now this harsh response

on a lot of it could be attributed to the zero tolerance policy that is in stated at schools across the country i wanted to take a look at one at a piece of this policy some schools might might abide by scold reliance suspension expulsion citations some and there's an arrest to handle disciplinary problems like bringing cellphones an i pod to school smoking cigarettes and skipping class criminal charges are brought against you within schools for violations that never would be considered criminal acts committed by an adult so kevin i mean as childhood normal childhood behavior becoming criminalized. knowledge of becoming criminalized is becoming pathologists as well we have three million children who are being diagnosed with a.d.d. and other types of psychological issues for what is essentially a normal childhood if you're and it is you will kind of taking a look at what you know one thing leading to another leading to another you know

when kids get charged how does that affect the rest of their lives i mean it's happening at such a young age yet i mean and terms of going to college and getting a job that stigma of already being you know having that run in with the law i mean how does this kind of set the telling for the rest of their lives one of the things that has always amazed me is every time i show my film and present that the screenings people who are me afterward with their own stories of injustice just stayed with them since they were little and these would generally be sort of trivial thing but that always stuck with them and i think about. these these much more dramatic situations where girls scribble down on her desk in the in a mark earnest taken away by the police as a result of that something that the easily cleaned up and then i know to the degree that that we use in terms of injustices stay with people that it leads to distrust of authority and general apathy and these anti social attitudes in general

now i want to get back to kind of the root of this this trend that we're seeing police officers patrolling the halls of middle schools and high schools i mean just to have that police presence there armed police officers patrolling your schools i mean that has to do something to that to the mentality and to the learning environment within the school you know the students i spoke to generally felt as if they were in prison these days they recognize a prison environment they felt very paranoid the cameras definitely increased the paranoia i spoke with students at columbine and one of the things that basically is taking place is that cameras didn't play. many many high schools are the country in response to columbine but the tumors were actually in columbine prior to shooting that took place there and no one questions whether the cameras were. contribute to. the psychology. to explode but they generally

resent. and feel you know the perpetual surveillance that they're under and i mean given how do we get to this point i mean education is supposed to be you know this stimulating this learning environment preparing kids for the adult world i mean when it is shift from education to this to this more culture i'll be disciplined. well education by its nature these public schools as they're defined always was fundamentally problematic and if you look at the. proficiency in. writing it's thirteen percent of the country at night state schools schools have always failed and never been very good at educating them and this is sort of a continued trend in the problem is that schools are governed by social efficiency which means that they have to process large numbers of people and they generally do this if if they are in order to credit the institution and their primary means of

creating stability is depressing to send what i think the transformation that took happened was that we went from a homogeneous population in the schools to a heterogeneous one and so where you have a common culture in school where everyone sort of comes from the same background it's easier to just suppress and keep people in line but when people have different cultures greater efforts have to be made to basically. gee people online and force the conformity with the demanded and required in public schools that they're not good places to learn in the not good places to be so i know that you say schools i read that you say schools that are not healthy environment canada are deprived of almost all civil rights i mean what do you mean by that and when kids are oppressed how can we expect us to react. you know those what i outlined in the war on terror that show that this is a this is a terrible problem is there was

a landmark supreme court case that was actually outed as and the defense for the rights of students which was tinker versus the morning where the petitioners were allowed to wear black armbands but the only reason they were allowed to wear it was armbands was that they met several guidelines that they were quiet and passed and they were not the twelve years and they didn't and some of the ones with the kingston so that is basically. the guidelines for the leader you know how students may behave how they can even express the first amendment rights who is to be really was strict is that they can be searched in season any time they are there strip searches that have been done and i know it was a court case that sort of called questions of that but that was only because they were searching for. aspirin instead of the legal drugs and being smarter than that was. and they had they're deprived of miranda rights being really do not

have civil rights in school and this is based environment which is essentially fascist environment which was a they grew up in in syria and they really are not aware of what their civil rights and there have been studies that have shown that they basically expect the government to review. things and in the press before that they actually is a forty nine percent the high school student said that it was appropriate for government through the new media who are you know and censored if necessary and this is very disturbing and this is what they that comes out of being in that kind of environment so and so and you know this environment it seems unfair unproductive it just doesn't seem that and i mean it it doesn't seem like it's a it's a good system i almost like it or failing our kids here in the us i mean as opposed to this approach what it would be more a more effective approach and terms of dealing with cancer whether it's

rehabilitation or counseling what are the better alternatives. a better alternative is basically a system where where students are allowed to pursue their interests and one of the primary things that takes place in school the very first lesson you may not pursue whatever it is you're interested in we have a curriculum and we're not even going to you know whatever is interesting or potentially interesting the curriculum will be taken out there can't be anything controversial in particular. so whatever is there is just the start anyway so students you know children must be permitted millau to study what they're interested in and have mentors and not be placed in an environment where they are deprived of pursuing you know what it is that they enjoy. learning is in is diverted into something. that the students the children resent not because of their own desires and drives but because of.